es, there is no external compulsion. The ever
smaller minority of strict practisers make use of a right which nobody can
contest.

Drinking wine or other intoxicating drinks, taking interest on money,
gambling--including even insurance contracts according to the stricter
interpretation--are things which a Moslim may abstain from without
hindering non-Mohammedans; or which in our days he may do, notwithstanding
the prohibition of divine law, even without losing his good name.

Those who want to accentuate the antithesis between Islam and modern
civilization point rightly to the personal law; here is indeed a great
stumbling-block. The allowance of polygamy up to a maximum of four wives
is represented by Mohammedan authors as a progress if compared with the
irregularity of pagan Arabia and even with the acknowledgment of unlimited
polygamy during certain periods of Biblical history. The following subtle
argument is to be found in some schoolbooks on Mohammedan law: The law of
Moses was exceedingly benevolent to males by permitting them to have an
unlimited number of wives; then came the law of Jesus, extreme on the other
side by prescribing monogamy; at last Mohammed restored the equilibrium by
conceding one wife to each of the four humours which make up the male's
constitution. This theory, which leaves the question what the woman is
to do with three of her four humours undecided, will hardly find fervent
advocates among the present canonists. At the same time, very few of them
would venture to pronounce their preference for monogamy in a general way,
polygamy forming a part of the law that is to prevail, according to the
infallible Agreement of the Community, until the Day of Resurrection.

On the other side polygamy, although _allowed_, is far from being
_recommended_ by the majority of theologians. Many of them even dissuade
men capable of mastering their passion from marriage in general, and
censure a man who takes two wives if he can live honestly with one. In some
Mohammedan countries social circumstances enforce practical monogamy. The
whole question lies in the education of women; when this has been raised to
a higher level, polygamy will necessarily come to an end. It is therefore
most satisfactory that among male Mohammedans the persuasion of the
necessity of a solid education for girls is daily gaining ground. This year
(1913), a young Egyptian took his doctor's degree at the Paris University
by sustaining a